Connor held a hand out to her, and she shifted the bag of art supplies from one hand to the other, so she could link fingers with his. They made their way through the woods to a small clearing where dragonflies buzzed around a small pond. A large pin oak had fallen near the edge of the pond, and Connor led her to it. Across the pond, Morris had found what remained of a child’s tree house and had climbed up and settled inside. He gave a wave, letting them know he was watching but affording them a few moments of private conversation.
Darby sat down on the fallen oak trunk and stared out over the glassy green water. “It’s so pretty here. And peaceful.”
Connor pulled out her sketch pad and handed it to her. “Draw it. I want this to be the picture I take with me to WitSec.”
She swallowed hard to clear the tightness from her throat. “For what it’s worth...” She glanced down at her fidgeting fingers, then back to Connor. “If Savannah weren’t sick, if the Gales weren’t still breathing down our necks, I’d have accepted your proposal. I want us to be a family.”
Bittersweet emotions crossed Connor’s face. He drew a deep sigh and exhaled harshly, clearly fighting to keep his composure. “I want that, too. More than you know.”
Darby paused in the middle of pulling a drawing pencil from a pouch. “Then why—?” She bit her lip and, feeling reckless and under the constraint of the limited time they had left together, she blurted the question that had plagued her, tormented her since Connor returned. “Why didn’t you ask me to go with you when you entered WitSec? Why haven’t you asked me to go with you now?” When he sent her a frown and furrowed his brow like the answer was obvious, she waved a hand, cutting him off. “I know the reasons I can’t go. We’ve just been through all that with Morris. I want to know why you didn’t even ask me to go with you, even when you proposed!”
Connor looked stunned. “Darby, I—”
But she wasn’t done. Once the floodgate of pain opened, the hurt poured out. “Throughout this whole ordeal, you haven’t once asked me to stay with you, to give our relationship a chance. You’ve said you love me, yet you have no plan of staying with me!”
“Because I can’t!” he said, his jaw, his fists, his shoulders all taut. “I can’t put you at risk!”
“I know that! God, I know all that! But you haven’t even asked. You tell me how it’s going to be. You tell me what you’ve decided. You tell me you want Savannah to have your name. But you leave me out of every decision that affects us and our future. Just like you have from the moment you faked your death and left me alone to grieve for you and have our baby alone!”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t know about your pregnancy!”
“Because I didn’t know yet! And my being pregnant shouldn’t make the difference.”
“What? Of course it makes a difference! If I’d known I was a father, I’d have—”
“What?” she interrupted, pointing at him. “You’d have what? Married me? Taken me with you?”
He spread his hands, his expression incredulous and exasperated. “Yes! Of course!”
She inhaled sharply, a searing pain shooting to her core. She wilted, letting the pad and pencil pack in her hands slip to the dirt. “That’s what I thought,” she muttered, not hiding her dejection and hurt.
Confusion denting his brow, Connor stepped forward and knelt at her feet. “How is that the wrong answer?”
She looked across the still pond, watching a Jesus bug skim across the water and saying nothing for long seconds. Finally he shifted to sit beside her on the fallen tree.
“Darby, please.” He rubbed a hand on her back, massaged her neck gently. “I want to understand. Why are you mad? Tell me what you want to hear.”
“It’s not about what I want to hear. What I need to hear is the truth. Just the unvarnished truth about us. And I think I just got it.” She darted a quick side glance at him and found his face as creased with doubt and confusion as before. Sighing, she turned back to the pond, knowing if she wanted his bald honesty, she owed him full disclosure, too. She took a moment to garner her courage and composure. “When my dad left us, he disappeared without explanation, without saying goodbye.”
Connor’s thumb strummed the tendon at the back of her neck, his fingers cradling her nape. “I know. And I know how much it hurt you.”
“Do you?” She looked at him, searching his golden-brown eyes. “Because I’ve only come to realize all the ways he hurt me in recent days. Since you came back.”
Connor stiffened.
“The thing is, when he left us so abruptly, I felt...more than rejected. I felt like...I didn’t matter. I wasn’t important. I wasn’t loved enough for my father to stay.”
Connor groaned sympathetically. “Darby, no. Don’t put that on yourself. You are loved, and you are important. To lots of people.”
“Just not to you. Not important enough.”
She felt the jolt that shot through Connor, making him jerk taut. “Are you insane?”
He reached around her to seize her arms and turn her toward him. He gave her a small shake and drilled her with his stare. “You matter more to me than my own life! That’s what all this is about! That’s why I gave up everything to protect you. How can you say you aren’t important to me?”
“Then fight for me!” she cried, her voice torn by a sob. “Give me the chance to be with you. Ask me to go with you when you leave for WitSec! I don’t want to be abandoned again! I want to know I’m enough reason for you to stay even if Savannah wasn’t part of the equation.”
Connor released her, dragging a hand over his mouth as he rocked back on the tree trunk. His face paled, and his expression was stark, stricken.
Darby squeezed her eyes shut and swiped away the tears on her cheeks with her palms. “I know it wouldn’t change anything about the reality of our situation and all the reasons I can’t go with you. But it would make a difference in here.” She clapped a hand over her heart. She raised her eyes to Connor, her soul stripped bare, her emotions raw and naked. “I just want to matter enough that you ask me to go with you.”
He took a few more deep breaths, then laced his fingers with hers and kissed the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Darby. I didn’t realize...I didn’t—”
He paused, a thousand emotions swirling in his gaze when he met hers. Darby held her breath. Waited. Her hope was a fragile bird perched on the edge of a vast abyss.
“I didn’t ask you to come with me,” he started slowly, softly, his voice heavy, “for all the reasons I’ve told you. To keep you safe. Because my death had to look believable. Because I didn’t want you to have to give up your life, your family.” He waved a hand. “All that is true. But if I’m honest—with you and with myself—I also didn’t ask you because...I was scared.”
It was Darby’s turn to be stunned and confused. She wrinkled her forehead and shook her head. “Why?”
“Because I am the control freak you say I am. I could handle living without you if I believed I was making the sacrifice to keep you safe, but I couldn’t bear the idea of living without you because—” he stopped and looked away “—because you said no.”
Her breath caught. “Connor...”
“I knew how much your family meant to you, how much your art meant to you, and I knew there was a good chance you’d say no. I needed our separation to be on my terms...because I was afraid if I gave you a choice, you’d say no.” He blew out a cleansing breath through pursed lips and sent her an apologetic look. “I guess I’m still scared. I know how mad you were over my deception when I entered WitSec. Even though I know Savannah’s illness prevents you from coming with me, I don’t want to know you might choose your life in Lagniappe over me. You said you couldn’t love me again.”
Darby blinked slowly, letting Connor’s confession roll through her and settle in her bones. A mixture of relief and s
adness expanded in her chest.
They sat together in an aching silence as the late spring sun beat down on them. In the pond, a fish jumped, and a bird took flight from a scrub bush nearby. After a few moments, Connor took both of her hands in his and squeezed them tightly. She lifted her head and met the heat and passion in his gaze.
“Darby, I love you with all I am and all I’ll ever be. I need you in my life and at my side for always. Will you please come with me, stay with me, no matter what life brings and where fate takes us?”
Love and pain exploded inside her, and a sob hiccupped from her throat. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she captured his mouth in a lip-bruising kiss. He released her hands to plow his fingers into her hair and frame her face with his hands. His fingers curled against her scalp, holding her close as he shifted his lips to deepen the kiss. She slid closer, settling on his lap so that the frantic clamoring in her chest was pressed against the thunderous cadence in his.
He moved his lips along her jaw, over her nose, drying the moisture from her cheeks with his kisses. And for the first time in many years, she felt well and truly cherished.
Digging her fingers into his shirt, clinging to him, to the beautiful moment they had together, she whispered, “I want that. So, so much. I want to stay with you forever.” A knot closed her throat. “But I can’t.”
He stilled. Pulling back, Connor looked into her eyes with a shared grief. “I know.”
Chapter 20
A low buzzing woke Darby early the next morning. At first she thought a mosquito had gotten in the bedroom, and she swatted groggily by her ear. But the intermittent buzz continued until the low rumble of a sleepy male voice in another room said, “Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”
Darby pressed a button on her watch to light the face, and even that dim glow was blinding in the dark room. She squinted at the watch, blinking the numbers into focus—4:35 a.m. Awfully early for a phone call. Too early. Phone calls at this hour usually meant bad news. Her heart lurched.
“No, nothing. Why?”
She rolled her head to the side to glance at Connor, but he snored softly, contentedly asleep.
“What!” Morris said, more loudly, the displeasure in his voice palpable.
Darby’s gut flipped. So it was bad news. Tossing back her covers, she crept soundlessly on bare feet toward the door of the living room.
“In her room?” Morris asked, his volume decidedly lower now, almost a whisper. If not for the stillness of the night, Darby would have missed his reply. “Is the girl okay?”
Darby froze, still hidden around a corner in the hall. Savannah!
She clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling the mewl of distress that rose in her throat. Her knees buckled, and she braced a hand on the wall, straining to listen.
“Damn it! No, that doesn’t sound good.” A floorboard squeaked, and the soft thud of footsteps filled the gap between Morris’s responses. “What did the note say?”
Darby peeked around the corner and found Morris pacing, his fingers raking through his sleep-mussed hair. Her first impulse was to charge into the room and demand to know what had happened to Savannah, but Morris’s next reply stopped her.
“No, I agree. I won’t tell them. They’d only freak out. What’s done is done.”
Darby’s eyes widened, and anger roiled inside her. Not tell them? How much of the truth were the marshals withholding from her and Connor? She had a right to know anything and everything that was happening with her daughter! Adrenaline and fury fueled her rubbery legs, and she made a move toward the living room. Then balked.
Her best chance to learn what had happened was to continue listening from where she was, out of view. She pressed her back against the cool wall and tried to hear Morris over the sound of her pulse throbbing in her ear.
“How the hell did he get in there? Where was Hargrove? The family? The nurses?” Morris fell silent, then cursed. “And you’ve interviewed everyone who was on duty? No one saw anything? How is that possible?”
Darby closed her eyes, imagining a hundred kinds of terror that could have happened. She’d stayed out here at the safe house because she’d trusted the marshals to protect Savannah. But from the sound of it, some form of evil had slipped through the cracks and threatened her daughter. She curled her toes against the hardwood floor, hating her isolation, swamped by a need, an imperative to get back to her daughter’s bedside. Even if it cost her her own life. She had to protect Savannah, and she would move mountains to make that happen.
“No problem. You finish cleaning up the situation there. I can stay.” The creak of floorboards was replaced by the squeak of a couch spring. Darby hazarded a peek, and sure enough, Morris had sat down on the edge of the sofa, his head down, phone to his ear. “Right.” He sighed with disgust. “Keep me posted. Yeah, bye.”
Morris keyed off the connection and tossed the phone on the cushion beside him. He stayed in his defeated position, shoulders slumped and head lowered, his hand scrubbing his face for long seconds before pushing to his feet and walking to the front window. Parting the blinds with one finger, he peered out into the night.
Darby debated her options. Morris had always seemed sympathetic to her cause, had shown a personal interest in her well-being, had helped Connor get the art supplies that had filled her hours this week. Maybe she could wheedle some information from him. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, as bad as she was imagining. Because her imagination was playing some pretty terrifying scenarios in her head. Stabbings, her family taken hostage, more car bombs, poisons injected in Savannah’s IV.
Straightening from the support of the wall, Darby gathered her composure, at least outwardly, and schooled her face not to give away the churning in her gut. She stepped into the living room, blinking groggily and trying to look as if she’d just gotten up. “Who was that on the phone?”
Morris whirled around, his expression momentarily startled, but he, too, quickly put on a mask of nonchalance. He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “What are you doing up?”
“I heard the phone. Talking.” She tipped her head. “What was it about?”
He twisted his mouth in a dismissive moue and shook his head. “Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes skeptically, feeling her temper and sense of betrayal rise. “Nothing? Someone called at four-thirty to say nothing?” Her voice sounded remarkably calm, considering she was still quivering with fear for Savannah and pique at the marshal’s obvious intent to keep her in the dark.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Nothing. Wrong number.”
Liar. “Hmm. You always talk that long to a wrong number?”
She held his gaze, and he had the nerve to look her in the eye as he said, “Drunk dialer. I decided to yank his chain a bit before I hung up.” He flashed a lopsided grin. “Let him think he’d reached his friend to see where it would go, if he’d catch on.”
“Hmm,” she hummed tightly, barely containing the anger and hurt that this man she’d trusted could be so completely dishonest without an ounce of regret. “Did he? Catch on that you were lying to him?”
A flicker of something crossed his face. The barest twitch in his cheek as he gritted his teeth. But his eyes remained steady, emotionless. Unyielding. “I don’t know. I hung up.”
She grunted as if acknowledging him and jerked a nod. “All right, then. I’ll go back to bed. Good night.”
He nodded once. “’Night.”
Her body taut and vibrating, Darby stalked back to the bedroom and closed the door. Using only the dim light from the moon through the blinds, she crawled back onto the bed and shook Connor.
“Wake up,” she whispered, her voice quiet but urgent. “Something’s happened with Savannah, Connor. We have to get away from here.”
He jerked awake, sitting up quickly and rubbing his eyes
to help him focus. “What did you say?”
She grabbed fists full of the sheets, working to keep her voice quiet, despite the panic fluttering beneath her ribs. “Morris got a call. I overheard his end of the whole conversation, and it was clear that something bad had happened. I heard him ask if ‘the girl’ was okay. He had to mean Savannah.”
In the dim glow from the window, she saw the frown that pulled Connor’s mouth and brow. “And what answer did he get?”
“I don’t know, but it didn’t make him happy. There was something about a note in her room, and he wanted to know how anyone could have gotten into her room.” She detailed everything she heard, including Morris’s decision not to tell them so they wouldn’t “freak out.”
“He was right about that much,” she said, her hands restless in her lap and her heart hammering. “I’m officially freaked out. We gotta find out what happened. I have to get out of here. I need to be with my baby!”
Connor tossed back the covers and swung his legs to the floor. “I’ll talk to Morris, demand to know what’s happening.”
“I did ask. He denied he got the call. Claimed it was a wrong number.” She squared her shoulders as she rose from the bed and faced Connor. “He flat-out lied to me. Right to my face. Without even blinking.” A fresh wave of betrayal and anger swirled through her. “I’m through with the marshals and this protective custody, Connor. I have to be with Savannah. I don’t care how dangerous it is. Protecting her is my job. I’m her mother!”
Connor stared at her for long pregnant seconds, his body tense and resolute, his mouth grim. “No. It’s our job. I’m going with you.”
* * *
They kept the light off, their voices a whisper, so they wouldn’t alert Morris or Ramsey that they were awake...and planning.
“So how do we get the car key from that safe without them knowing?” Darby asked, snuggled against Connor on the bed. Her pulse galloped with anticipation as they plotted.
“We don’t. Grant taught me how to hot-wire a car when we were in high school. We just need to find a screwdriver around here.”
The Return of Connor Mansfield Page 22